The Angels Among the Artifacts
by EllePepper
Summary: "The Assassins are in the Warehouse, Keep your eyes open." An Agent's odd gravestone message, written two hundred years before her birth heralds an end-of-the-world showdown with an ancient enemy. Set during the doctors 'missing 200 years.
1. Message in a Bottle

I do not own Warehouse 13 (W13 for notes) Nor do I own Doctor who (DW) or Torchwood (TW) I make no money, this is just for fun. Continuity note. I wrote this before the current season of w13, so Jinks isn't there, and from a DW standpoint it is in the 200 year gap. From a TW standpoint probably pre season one specifically part of the time he was working for TW london, so he knew he could not be seen out and about.

What happened to Karen Trainer? What foe is so frightening that even Artie is terrified of it? How do they know the Doctor? And what are these unknown Artifacts lurking in the shadows that have this agent so terrified she can only speak of them in Puzzles? And who is this Madman?

Karen Trainer couldn't remember how she ended up there. All she knew was that she was reaching out to bag an artifact, and then there was a flash and there was open land all around her. The field where the warehouse should have stood was empty, in fact, everything was empty. Something nudged her hard at her arm and she looked over to see a horse. It had nudged her as if it expected something of her. The beast was saddled, and so, figuring it was some sort of trick of the artefact, she looked for a block. Finding a rock that would work, she pulled herself up onto the horse and headed toward town.

She didn't know where she was going, she just headed for what she thought would be the direction of Univille. Her gun and notebook were still there. And when she was found three days later, she was raving mad. Talking about a warehouse, a man named Artie, and an Angel.

No one there had heard of the Warehouse, and certainly no one had heard of Artie, and so Karen Trainer, Secret service agent, found herself in the worst situation imaginable, a hundred years out of her own world, stuck in a place she didn't know, with people who didn't know her, aware of the fact that she was in the wrong time. Of course everyone else said she was insane. Which is how she ended up in Ward nine.

Artie sat at the desk. He had heard something, but couldn't immediately see what it was. It took two more repetitions before he noticed it. The small stone box on the table had changed. The sound had been the latches on the lid moving. The words on the box were written in a language that even he couldn't identify. It was one of the few Artifacts that had never been catalogued, because in the lower right corner was an icon any warehouse agent as old as Artie would know. A box with six smaller boxes set in two rows.

The last latch popped loose.

He pulled the lid off and looked inside. Like the bag of holding, he was surprised to find it dimensionally trancendental. And inside was a bundle of papers written in an unfamiliar script. Artie pulled the papers out and opened them up, looking at them closely.

He was so absorbed in trying to to read them that he didn't even hear claudia until she stopped right in front of him. "Oh cool, you have a message box."

"A message box?"

Claudia nodded. "Yeah, supposedly they are a box you put your message in, whatever it is and you sign it, date it and seal it and it will find its way to place it needs to be, it will open on the date you specify."

She picked up the box finding it heavier than she expected but not bearing a trademark. It felt like it might actually be metal. "This is a good prop."

"Prop?"

"Yeah, it's from a british TV show, one of the things that the main Character, the Doctor used."

"You mean Doctor Who?"

Claudia nodded.

"Umm, Claudia, I hate to tell you this, but, that show isn't fake."

"What?"

"This is an artifact" Artie said. "A couple centuries ago, he had us hide some things that he didn't want getting into public circulation. Unfortunately, I can't read any of this."

Claudia heard something rattle in the bottom of the container and reached in, pulling out a pair of specs. A paper stuck to them said "for Arthur."

He put them on without a second thought and looked over at the paper. The words moved until they were in alignment as letters that he could understand.

"Arthur, if you are reading this, I am afraid something has gone rather amiss. I'm putting this part in Phasic Ink so that only you can read it because I trust you to know how much to reveal to the others as we go along. And before we start. I'm Sorry, I'm so sorry, there truly was nothing I could do."

Artie took the glasses off and looked down at the squggly lines again. He hated those words. They usually signaled trouble, and almost always someone died. But he had made a promise to help the Time Lord. Now he just had to figure out which version of him this was.

With the glasses back on he read, turning pale, he said nothing to Claudia, but handed her the papers that were written normally. The others, he put along with the glasses back in the container. The locks sealed again.

"I need you to get Myka and Pete."

"All right, where are you going?"

"I have to find an old Friend of the Warehouse and wring his scrawny neck.

The figure in a suit and Suspenders, wearing a bow tie looked out of place, as out of place as his accent. There, on the street corner, leaning against a public call box was the Doctor. If Artie hadn't known the Tardis, he wouldn't have recognized the man before him. "Bit of a facelift."

Artie said as he approached.

The figure smiled, "a couple,"

"What is it now, ten?"

"Eleven."

Artie nodded. "So you said you had some information about our missing agent."

The doctor nodded. "But you won't like it."

"That's a given Doctor."

"Karen Trainer died in 1801." The doctor said. His normal boistrous self reserved.

"1801?"

The doctor looked very worried. "Please, tell me that vault 9 is still intact."

"I don't even know if any of my current agents know it exists."

"Then let's go see if the beasts are still in their cages."

"Did you know about McPherson?"

"I tried to warn you."

"But why couldn't you tell me?"

"Spoliers." The doctor wasn't his normal bouncy self.

"So what happened?"

"Will happen." The doctor tried to smile. "Tenses get all fouled up."

"You're looking a bit like nine right now, foul-tempered and moody."

"Artie, I die in two weeks"

"On to twelve then." Artie tried to laugh it off as the Doctor did, but was unsettled at the role reversal.

"No, Artie. Gone, dead, Kaput. They stop my regeneration cycle before it starts."

"Forever gone." The two words were like a lead weight. "I'm sorry." This time it was Artie's turn to give condolances.

"Probably better than I deserve."

"Don't say that." Artie laughed. "I know most of your deep dark secrets Doctor, and I know that anything you have done you have done to help. It is not your fault that people die. It doesn't matter matter how much we care, or don't care, humans are Fragile."

"I notice you are not bugging me for your Wrist strap back."

"For the first time in a very long time, I'm happy Doctor."

"Good, but I have to say, I was hoping that you wouldn't show. That she had managed to get away."

"So what happened?"

"Did you read her diary?"

"No."

"You haven't been to the vault yet?"

"No, I only got the letter an hour ago."

The doctor smiled and dashed off towards Leena's "Then there is still time."

The man who had once been Jack Harkness lay sprawled on the floor of the room. The room was dark and quiet. He was quite sure that everyone had forgotten about him. Not really a new experience. On one side was a small wardrobe, containing the clothes he had been wearing when he woke up. He had changed clothes, and when he came to later he had found the clothes cleaned, pressed, and mended, hanging on the rack. The room was entirely without windows, along one side was a cot, one that reminded him too much of Ianto, and in another corner was a Lav. He had running water, a shower.

He had long since lost all track of time, or how many times he had starved to death. But he wasn't very happy. Something had happened, he wasn't sure what, but something had disturbed the universe somehow, something that had woken him from his self-induced coma to the raw, gnawing pain of hunger.

The Universe writhed again. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. He couldn't explain it. It wasn't the quiver and turn that the universe did when he and the Doctor were together, no this was something bad, something Evil, something had awakened and it had woken him.

Carefully he pushed himself to his feet, it took three tries before he could stand, and he knew he had been there a very long time. The fixtures were the same non-discript turn of the century they had always been.

Finally he stumbled to the lav, relieved himself and then started the shower. He knew it must have been a large building because it always took forever to get hot water. But it was the one luxury he allowed himself.

He soaked in the blindingly hot water, trying to wash the grime and pain away. The burns healed as they always did, the pain lancing its way down into the very bottom of his soul. He didn't move until the water began to chill. Then, with practiced motions he dried himself off and dressed. He couldn't have told you why he picked his old clothes rather than the white and black shirts he was usually in, But for some reason, this time, it seemed right. Just like it seemed right to take his boots out of the bottom of the closet. They were still dusty and full of grime so he pulled the brush and polish out of one of the pockets of his greatcoat and set to work, whistling a tune that the Doctor had taught him a long time ago, and wishing to see him.


	2. The story of No one

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

The service for Karen Trainer had only four people, the priest, Two orderlies of the Sanitarium and her Doctor. The gravestone read, at her request, only one thing. "The Lonely Assassin is in the Warehouse, Open your eyes." And beneath it was a number that no one there understood. "13." One of the orderlies held a small box. It was willed to a young woman in town. Upon her eighteenth birthday. The box was to be passed down generation to generation until it came to Myka. She had used one of the artifacts she had in her pocket, one she had managed to slip in, something made by HG Wells, it allowed her to see the future, and when she looked at her badge, she could see the agent named Myka. She just had to hope the box didn't get lost.

#

Sadly Artie punched in the last numbers. "We were never sure what happened to her. One moment she was here, the next she was gone. We spent nearly a year looking for her. Finally, when there was no sign of her, we declared her missing presumed dead and locked it all away. It has come to my attention that she died.

Pete, Myka and Artie stood staring into the past. Agent Trainer's room. On the bed, as it always was when she was home was her diary. Printed on the cover were the simple words "Secrets and lies."

The inscription on the inside cover was simple. "To the fellow agents of the Warehouse these are the cases I worked, the lies I told to the rest of the world. I hope these words will help you some day."

Artie flipped to the picture of the young woman. "She was only with us about six months before she vanished. She'd had some really bad breaks, got scooped up when an Artifact malfunctioned and destroyed her life. She kept digging into the Warehouse and so we picked her up and let her become an agent."

"How do you just vanish?" Pete asked.

"We have an agent who walked into the Escher vault and never returned." Artie said, "We were pretty sure she was investigating artifacts in her spare time. She wasn't prepared to believe what we told her. She was sure that someone in the warehouse had sic'ed the artifact on her."

"Pete, you and Myka take her Diary and try to figure out what she was looking into. Maybe that will tell us something."

#

"This Trainer babe was a little crazy. I mean at first she was just a little driven, but then she started using artifacts to try and get answers, kept trying to break into the Warehouse mainframe. She was ranting about vision, and sight and darkness. And about how no one else understood."

Pete sat at the table with the diary in front of him. "I mean look at this."

"They move in the dark, faster than sight." He flipped a page. The writing became more of a scrawl.

Or this, "They inhabit their own image." She goes on that way for a page or two before she talks about something else. "Call them, Get the Madman, tell them we need a Code Nine. Call as many as we can, the army is coming, beware the darkness." Pete flipped five or six pages. "Here is one that really creeps me out. "Tell Myka the answer is in the Box,"

Myka choked on the cookie she was eating and looked over at the book. "I'm serious." She kept talking about a monacle from HG Wells… or something."

It was Artie's turn to choke. "She said that was destroyed. It supposedly tells the future of whatever you look at. So if you, for instance looked at a building, you could see if it would be there in a hundred years. With people it was hit and miss, sometimes it would tell you of descendants, and other times it would just show you a corpse. Which is one of the reasons we confiscated it."

Pete flipped a few pages. "Here is one of her less insane ravings. 'There is one in the corridors, left alone with the visions of itself, inert, but there are more we did not see, more hidden in the shadows, in the Gardens, in Churches, in Graveyards, they are waiting for us. The others have no idea what they have done. They have been biding their time, gathering numbers. How many of them there are and what they can do, it makes my heart cold. They are coming for me because I know. They want me because I have words for their visions. For things that cannot be drawn or they become themselves a horror to plague us. Scream to the heavens, scream for him, Call the Doctor, call the madman, for the moon will go out, the night will be dark and the attack will begin."

#

"How is Patient zero?"

"Better today, he bathed himself and dressed in the clothes he came in with. He's polishing his boots now. Whistling a merry tune. He seems in good spirits."

"And the gun?"

"Not loaded, not after last time."

"Any indications what woke him?"

"None at all."

"He still insists on being called Jack?"

"Always. That's the one delusion that never fails. He's Jack Harkness." The doctor paused a moment to check the records. "Excuse me, Captain Jack Harkness."

Jack heard the doorway open. He dropped the cleaning brush he had and pushed himself back against the wall. His stance wasn't hostile, but he wanted to make sure they couldn't flank him, not again.

"It's ok Jack."

"Doctor Kesington." His voice was scratchy. "Could I get some water."

"Of course."

They brought in sealed water bottles. He had screamed before about poisoning him. "Food?"

"Of course, but you have to let our medical people take a look at you. We have to make sure you can handle food. See if we can figure out what is causing these coma's.

"I am."

"You?" The doctor smiled in that placating way that she had. He hated that smile.

"Yes, when I get too hungry, when I get too bored, I make myself go away."

"Or when the nightmares come?"

"Have to sleep to dream doc," He laughed wryly. "I haven't done that for years."

"So you still believe you are Immortal."

"And you still don't believe I am."

He smiled wickedly. "What do I have to do to prove it? Kill myself again?"

"You know we have to restrain you if you talk like that."

Jack smiled again. "How long have you been my doctor?"

"Nine years."

"In that time have I ever aged? How many times have you seen me eat?"

"You are the same as the day you arrived, I've seen you eat a few times, I've seen you on An IV."

Jack held up his hand, palm down so that she could see it. "Do you see any IV scars?" He turned his wrist. "What about the scars from the restraints? From the times when I thrashed myself bloody?"

They had long since gotten past the pheramones especially since she was not the least interested in him, or men in general. Besides, as far as she was concerned he was a bug in a jar. And the things she could do with him. Now it was just a matter of figuring out what made him this way.

"Who are you really Jack?"

"No one you would know."


	3. Secrets, Lies, Artifacts, oh my

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

October 31, 2000

Karen Trainer, Warehouse 13

I am convinced that something is wrong. The one that we have in storage, something isn't right, when I looked into its eyes, I saw its plan. So many, so many legions of fallen angels, so many demons to take our place. They want to wipe us out, it cannot be as easy as they made it, which makes me wonder if it is all a trap. A way to make us lower our guard. I have read a few things about them, but none of it makes sense, but one thing they say is that vision is their weapon and their curse. But when I looked into the eyes of the statue, the unblinking artifact, I saw their intent. They cannot cry, they cannot mourn all they can do is eat, is absorb, is change that which sees too much. HG loaned me a few of her artifacts, and among them is a pocket watch I am not sure even Artie knows exists. It, she says, can buy me some time. Leave it to a statue to know about statues. My dreams are weird, and I know by the end I will probably be insane. There are three who can help, or maybe will be able to help I don't know. I know their names, I know they will each have a piece but the dreams still plague me and make it harder to remember, there is one who bears a shield, and one who bears a stethescope, and one who wears a coat, or is that a straightjacket? The damsel, the Doctor and the Madman are the three who can help. Because they have seen my mind, I had to hid what I know in puzzles and in plain sight.

But there is a fourth, aligned against. The one who opened Pandora's box. He does not know what he has done. A statue who sought to free the statues, no doubt they lied to him. No doubt they claimed they would spare him. But they do not know mercy, they only know hunger, and death, and darkness and light. Beware the darkness, for they thrive in the dark.

Vision is their weapon, so I try to set in words what there is to see. The image becomes the fact. The Army is rising. Hidden here for a long long time, they sleep without sleeping. They stare without seeing. In the sight of a living being the cease to live. But only as long as sight holds. Watch them, never sleeping, never caring, never resting, they hide their eyes but do not weep, they do not mourn for those they kill. Their defense is their curse, never seeing, never seen. What is seen has ceased to be, but only as long as the sight holds, then what is unseen lives again. They move through the shadows faster than sight, or sound or word or memory or thought. What is, was. Was was, now will never be. Call for the Physician, they are coming, please tell him they are coming."

Ten.

#

Artie never wanted to go into vault nine again. Never, ever. When they had constructed it forty years ago, they didn't know they would ever need it, but they had found a dated plan, and they had built it. And then, a few years later the whole Trainer thing had exploded. They had taken in Agent Trainer because she had no place left to go. There was one thing he had failed to tell Myka, something he figured she would find out on her own. As far as the population of the US was concerned, Agent Trainer died with the rest of her family in october of 2000, and it was either take her in, or chance her being arrested for murders she hadn't committed.

"We built this archive 40 years ago. There was a dated plan from an unknown warehouse agent, signed by Mrs Fredrick, saying that it would be needed to hold a particularly deadly artifact. Like most artifacts, it looks innocuous enough. But it is very lethal. A few ground rules. Keep your eyes on it. As long as something can see it, it cannot move. Don't blink, don't turn away, don't run. We will be blocking the mirror, so it can't see itself which means that it will be able to move. We are just going in to look at it and coming back out. Don't take your eyes off of it, don't look it in the eyes, and whatever you do don't touch it."

The door slid open and no body moved. Staring back at them were only their own reflections the artifact was gone.

Artie hit the release on the door and it slid shut just in time. Something banged against the outside.

"Everyone out." Artie opened the door opposite and shooed everyone out of the lift. "Stand over there on the red circle."

They had never seen Artie this worked up and knew better than to go against him when he was in this sort of mood. He touched a set of buttons and a bright white strobe flashed. "Ok, let's go."

Artie opened the door to the rest of the warehouse. "That should keep it busy for a little while."

#

Myka wasn't surprised to be called down to the 'town' near the warehouse, but it was more like the town that time forgot, what did surprise her was a delivery agent standing at the front counter of the post office. "Agent Myka?"

"My name is Myka yes,"

"Can I see your credentials please?" The man smiled sweetly. He looked tired. His coat and hat were both worn and rumpled as if he had been standing here for a while.

Myka handed over her credentals and the figure squinted at it and smiled. "Sorry, signatures can be forged but those Id's not as much. You have a package." He held out the small package. It was wrapped in brown paper about the size of a shoebox. "Your Father found it before you, and tried to have it destroyed, but it was destined to come to you, so we picked it up and held it for you."

He didn't move until she took the box. "It is a box of secrets and battle plans. It will tell you about a secret that even Artie and Mrs Fredrick don't know about, and if they did they would not have let it continue. There are only three who can safe the world."

"From what?"

"Just read what is in the box. Have an open mind. And mind the countdown. It starts at ten. By one they are no more. It is how they procreate. Sight is both defense and weapon."

#

Jack didn't know what he was waiting for. He didn't know who was coming, but something was coming, something bad, something End-Of-The-World bad. He didn't hate the doctor, the doctor hadn't locked him up here, he had locked himself up. He knew he couldn't be sighted, not before the date he remembered. It was funny living life out of sequence, because as a time traveler there were times when you did something before you actually did it. And in this case, he had found a very elaborate letter system set up, by none other than himself. A letter that led him to the Warehouse.

What warehouse? His memory was still bad, something had hit him, something that hurt. Something that took the memory from him.

He concentrated. Something bad had happened. Something really bad. He remembered running, lots of running. And then Pain, lots of pain. Pain that made it hard to breathe. In the distance he could hear something. Something he didn't like the sound of. Banging, someone was banging on a wall or a door. It was a methodical noise. "You have to save us." A female voice whispered in his ear. It's too late for me, but you can turn back the tide of time. He felt a fob watch pressed into his hand. "Two, it, I mean use it. I'm out of time." The voice retreated and with it was a sort of POP. Without thinking about it, he clicked the button on the Watch. An instant later the room was empty. And then he heard footsteps. "He's hurt."

"We're too early." The voice was firm. "Arthur, we can't change things."

And then a pair of eyes, Ancient Eyes looked down at him and said "I'm sorry Jack but you know what comes next."

And then footsteps. "Be humane." The voice said. "It still hurts him."

"Are you sure?"

"It has to be done." Jack was surprised to realize that those were his own words. "Just make sure I don't come back until its over."

The world went white. He had one more vision before he woke up there. Two men in white coats, and one with a string of crystals around his neck forcing something down his throat. He tried to spit the pill out. He knew that taste. They were trying to Retcon him. The world faded around him again, and he awoke in the bunker he had been in for what seemed like ages now.

Jack came back to himself with a start. The retcon must have started to fail. Something had finally triggered it, so he lay back, and prepared himself for the inevitable cascade of memories a retcon failure brought.


	4. The Truth Within

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

November 1, 2000

Agent Trainer, Warehouse 13

The war is over, or so they say, but they won't let me see the artifact that killed my family. I have officially become a dead woman. According to the Government, I died. And Artie says that if I hadn't that I would have ended up in jail. So from now on they will call me Karen Smith in public. I am forbidden from dealing with other Agents that don't know. And vault Nine, which is where they keep the artifact is set to not allow me access. And there is another deeper vault. It has no name, it is just marked with an oroborus, and a name. A name I cannot read, but I think the forgotten archive, which is what I call it, is the key to it.

The army is amassing, hidden in plain sight, where no one can see them, and yet they are seen. You walk by them and they turn your heart. You speed up to pass them by because there is just something wrong with them, you feel it, you know it. Those of us who work here can feel it. There is an agent, a man I don't know his name, but he is someone that Artie knows, someone that artie Cares for, a man that Artie thinks is innocent, but the things I have seen of him.

I'm Nine. I mean, I'm fine. The world is going on. We are the front line on a war that will never be known. Do not forget about the forgotten archive. The Doctor, The Madman, The Damsel. Find them, Oh please Artie, find them.

#

Myka sat at the table at Leenas and opened the package. Inside, at first she thought it was all trash, but then, as she looked at it she saw familiar handwriting. Karen Trainer. In the bottom of the box was a Secret Service ID, It had been sent to her Next of, who happened to be Artie. The letter was still sealed. But she knew a condolence letter when she saw one. She put it down quickly.

"Dear Myka. I know you don't know me. My name was Karen Trainer. Forevermore known as Karen Smith. Well, sort of. I am running out of time. And my thoughts swirl incessantly, I think some of it is the meds they give me. The artifact zapped me back two hundred years. But it didn't stop the countdown. It didn't stop the madness. I see their shape everywhere, but I dare not even attempt to draw them, seeing first hand what their image can do. I burned all the pictures of them I found.

The countdown, for me at least, is on pause. They are still coming, I can feel it. They are coming because they know that I can stop them. So they took me away from you so that I could not be there to stop them. But they are not imaginative enough to see that I might move the pieces from here so that things will go the way they were supposed to.

I can't tell their plan, they have forbade me from even telling you their form, they want so much to live and wreak havoc. They are patient, infinately patient. And the thing that pains me is that even if we stop the attack, we will not stop them all. We cannot, there is no way to know how many of them are out there.

Artie is wrong, I wasn't trying to break into Vault Nine, I was trying to break into the Forgotten Vault. One that I doubt even Artie knows is there, one that predates Mrs Fredrick, one that if she knew was there, as 'means to an end' as she is, would not allow. I set it up. I had to. I set up the Vault Nine. If everything has gone correctly I know what should be in vault nine, I also know our mistake. It was weeping. Only when it can see, only then is it still. As long as it cannot be seen even by itself, it can move freely. I am running out of Five.

Ignore the counting, I can't help it. It is their favorite attack, it makes us afraid. I don't know what to do. I had hoped that this would stop it, but I didn't know one of the assassins would be waiting for me here. It guarded the hospital. It waited in the dark, but it was afraid. It said that I had touched eternity, and it screamed. It wanted to blink me out of existance as it's compatriot had, but found it could not. And so it looked into me. I couldn't turn away, knowing their nature I stared at it. I didn't know what I should have remembered. Look at them, but not the eyes, anywhere but there.

Ask Artie about the Artifact that is never seen, but always watched. And about the legend of the Madman. Under a sign of eternity is a name, and that name, when spoken aloud will unlock a secret that even the Lonely Assasin fear. If you look into their eyes for too long, they take you. And now they have done that to me twice. Getting jumped back reset the timer, but I can feel them. They are coming. I am giving you what I can no longer trust myself with.

#

"Artie, what is the Artifact that is never seen but always watched?"

Myka knew that it was a very bad artifact, whatever it was. There were few times she could ever remember seeing Artie go white as a sheet. But this was one of them.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Agent trainer left a box for me."

"What?"

"She left a box in care of the post office for me." She held up the box. It went to my house when I was eighteen and dad refused it, so it bounced. A courier delivered it to the post office this morning."

"That particular artifact is one that would survive even the worst of the Failsafes the warehouse has. It was the one I tried to take you to see." He dug around in the paper files looking for a picutre, but all of them were gone.

"She said she burned all the pictures of it she could find because they could be used as a weapon, and that there was a mistake that was made, that the one you captured was weeping and so it could not see itself. As long as it could not see itself, it was free."

Artie stopped. "Did she tell you what 'it" is?

"She said they wouldn't let her, but that the countdown restarted where she was, because they couldn't just pop her out of existence again. It wanted to but when it tried it couldn't she said it screamed, and then it made her look at it, and she forgot what she needed to remember, that you should look at it, but not into its eyes."

"Not into it's eyes?"

"Something about that is how they procreate, and to mind the countdown."

Anything else?

"She said something about an Unknown archive, that it bore an eternity sign and that you and MRs Fredrick probably didn't know it existed, and that if she did she doubted Mrs fredrick would allow it."

"And that the Madman inside would be able to help."

#

It was Claudia Donnovan who solved the mystery for Artie. In her hack she had come across a file so sealed that even she had a hard time accessing it. But when she did she wasn't that interested in it. It was another wing of the Warehouse, one that was underneath where they were, with its own water and power.

Finding the entrance was easy, it was off one of the exits, so that if they had to evacuate they could. But what they found down there surprised them all. It horrified them all too.

Claudia, as usual was running ahead, and it was her horrified scream that alerted the rest of the Agents that something was wrong. As they skidded into the room, tesslas at the ready they saw the staff seated at different tables, long since turned to bones.

The lights on the panels were still running. And some of them were blinking on and off. Some of the lights were dim, blinking only once in a while. There was one near the door, still in the tatters of a lab coat, the light at her station was a steady pulse.

The whole room was U shaped, with the open end leading to the double-door that had allowed them entrance, while the other side hid another door, rounded like the wall, it was only the seam that gave any inclination that there was anything there.

Near one end was a small glass tube, about the size of a Neumatic cannister once used for messages. Beside that was a book. It bore the seal of the Warehouse, but that wasn't what caught their attention. Neither really was the doctor, long since gone to bones, nor was the mystery of the room itself. Instead, what caught their attention was what was next to them at the far end of the room, built into the curved wall, and filled with inscription was a doorway, next to it was a monitor.

The door was marked with the snake eating its tail. A sign for infinity. And beneath that was the inscription. It took Myka a moment to recognize it, the latin was poorly done more like a grammar school child's attempt at latin. "Here dwells the man who does not die, Captain Jack Harkness, The ultimate Artifact. Through him all humanity will live forever."

But it wasn't Until Myka had said his name aloud that they heard the sound. A deep, ominous click. The whole building shook and the seam on the door began to grow larger, light bleeding through from outside.

As the door opened it revealed a single figure strapped down to a bed. His eyes were closed, but by the Rapid Eye Movement, he was asleep. On the window near his bed was a small chart.

"Patient Zero.

Name, Unknown,

DOB, UNKNOWN.

Status Indefinite hold.

Installed 10/31/1800

Neural interface: Active.

Artifact: Classified

Patient shows delusion of being a Captain Jack Harkness, no man of his description, matching that name has ever been known to exist. Patient was transferred here from the Hospital of Sacred Angels at the request of an Unknown Agent. When awake he screams of an impending attack, and of needing a doctor, but whenever one is provided he says that they are not the right one. Was known to be a friend of the patient in ward Nine, Karen Trainer-smith. They appeared to share a delusion one of a place called Warehouse 13 that is supposed to be, or have been on this site. And a figure called ARTIE, who seems to be their guardian Angel.

Patient zero slipped into a coma on halloween and never awoke. He has been placed on life support since a patron of this establishment wished him to stay.

Beneath was an amendment.

"Was moved to this ward 12/10/1940, Patient remains unchanged remanded to the custody of the Secret Service. Secret service has disavowed all knowledge of him and remanded him to Ward 0 for study."

On the glass was a palm print. Artie put his hand to the window, and the scanner beeped. "Access Denied."

Without thinking about it, Myka put her hand to the glass. The glass glowed green for a moment, and then there was a trill, and the glass panel blocking their way moved.

#

Captain Jack Harkness felt the earth shake around him. And when he looked up the doctor was gone. In fact, when he looked up, everything was gone. His mouth felt dry and he recognized the feeling of severe dehydration. His eyes were so gritty that it took a moment for them to obey him when he told them to open.

He felt the cold draft and knew someone had come. He tried to speak, to tell them words, but it felt like he had been here a thousand years.

"Vial."

"Serum 13." Artie read.

"What does it do?"

"Fix me." The voice was barely understandable. Scratchy and dry.

The eyes, now open, looked up at Artie, begging. Pleading."Do it."

Claudia carefully measured out the dose according to the instructions and put it into his IV port.

The reaction was almost instant. He began to shake and convulse, throwing himself against the restraints. Then without warning he slumped. It was pretty obvious his heart had stopped which is why everyone was surprised when Artie wouldn't allow them to start CPR.

The minutes dragged on and suddenly, before anyone could explain, Jack drew a ragged breath and opened his eyes. His voice was still scratchy but he was a lot less weak, "Get me untied, we have a lot of work to do."


	5. Battle Plans

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

November 2, 2000

I hope, by now you have found what I left. That you have found the box. I hope that you have found the secret vault. The one that the man in the coat made me forget. They are coming, and there are more of them than you know. You will find their legend in the place where I was kept. Ask for the records of the assylum, certainly that many going missing cannot have gone unnoticed. I have to wonder how many of them were also born later than they died? How many of the lost children were here, is that why we were all here? Were we all just unlucky enough to be touched by the same artifact?

For the few minutes of lucidity I have right now, let me speak. These are dangerous. Forget one artifact, if Artie hasn't realized it there are hundreds, maybe thousands of them. And not just here, everywhere. They came here long ago, when you see them they cease to be, when you look away, they move. Stone, they move faster than thought. The artifact containment doesn't work. It doesn't need skin contact. Just contact. They are strong, and vicious. They weep without tears, they stand above the dead. Faces in their hands they appear to weep, but stone faces cannot cry. They are called Lonely Assassins and if you get to the Madman he can tell you more about them. But know this, once you see them, you must never look away. Don't turn your head, don't blink, as long as they are seen they are stone. Now, I must go, it is getting eight... Late, and the orderly will come looking for me soon.

#

Myka found it odd that there was no mention of the Sanitarium that had once been there. She went to the library to look it up, certain to find some ghost story. But what she found instead was a story that more resembled a mystery than a ghost story. There were a few that said the place was haunted but no one ever remembered a single patient dying there. Instead, there were more than a few reports of some that had gone insane, screaming of statutes that came to life, telling people to run. That the lights were going out. But even when they were sent to other asylums they would later just vanish. And the only connection beside the place was the counting.

"Holy Angels Sanitarium." The picture was grainy but there were two large statues at the front gate that even one or two hundred years ago looked like they had been defaced.

Myka traced it back to the first few weeks after the place was opened. Three of the patients, never before violent, never violent again, had attacked the statutes with metal bars and acid. Two of them burning themselves badly in the process. As they worked they screamed about the Lonely Assassins, and vowed to protect the others. They called themselves the Caretakers, and since then there has been at least one patient at the hospitals of the missing called the Caretaker, assigned to know the stories of the missing, and to keep safe the living until the Sainted Physician came to relieve them.

It was a large leather bound journal that caught her attention. It was called the Caretaker's Journal. The strange thing was, when the librarian saw it, it was as if the book didn't register. Like it didn't say what it should have. Instead, she handed it back to the Agent. "Looks like you mixed one of your own into the pile Agent." She said as the blonde-woman arranged the other books in a pile and slid them into a bag.

"So what interest does the secret service have in the old asylum?"

"We were investigating someone who used to be there. Do you know when the place closed?"

"Never really did. Just one night, halloween I thought, all the patients living there, and all the doctors just vanished. They had reports for weeks, missing persons reports for Insane people are a pain. They had a curfew the whole nine yards, but no one heard anything. They went back to check the place out and it was empty. It was as if they all just vanished."

"What happened to the statues?"

"Funny thing you should ask. They were auctioned off, but soon after they had gone to their new homes they had been vandalized, a group calling themselves the Caretakers took credit. They said the Statues were dangerous, but no one really heard anything about them. Then the Secret service bought the place, and built their warehouse on the other end of the land."

"So where is the Asylum?"

"Farthest end of the land. No one wanted to have anything to do with it. Especially once the big van came and moved a couple of patients to the lower levels. A week after they had moved everything out a group calling themselves Torchwood came through and firebombed the place. Asked if we had found anything or anyone. We of course didn't tell them about the Warehouse down there, them being brits and all, but they were mighty angry that nothing was there. They went and saw the statues, but said that they didn't think these were what they were looking for."

"Thank you for your time."

#

Pete had been sound asleep. He had started dreaming of Karen Trainer, and the mysterious counting affliction of hers. Murky images moved at the edges of his vision. He blinked up at stone walls, and outside the window there were two hulks of stone that should have been statues, their faces covered by their hands, or at least they should have been. But the stone was rough and pitted.

Ever since he had gotten the diary his Hunches had been going haywire there was something bad, and if his hunch was right, this was really bad, but it was as if it was something that he didn't know, something he couldn't see. Something just at the edge of his vision. Something dangerous.

Karen's words came back to him. "The statues speak with borrowed voices, whispering damnation and tempting the lonely God to destroy them forever. But that is a feat even he cannot do and his ancient hearts break at the thought of what he could not do." He heard her voice in his head as clearly as if she had said it aloud. But the voice in his head was a broken whisper.

"Look at three, I mean me, I'm running out of time. Ask the Madman, ask him of the Statues that move, Ask him about the thing he fears more than any other, and if he asks what that is, simply remind him of the words he said. "How far back would they have to send me?" And he will know the thing you seek, and when he sees the city he will understand. He will know what it is I mean. He will understand the magnitude of the Army against us. Tell him he must call for the Doctor, I know his voice speaking those Damned words, the words that damn with regret and sorrow. The ones that tell you he is truly helpless, the ones that tell you all is lost. I've heard those words twice. I must go, this link cannot stay. I am sorry to plague your dreams like the statues. But I will not give them power. I will not see their image, their face. Find the Caretakers and the Madman, and they will tell you what to do. I am sorry Pete, I am so sorry that you had to live to see this."

Pete woke with a start. He reached for a pen on the nightstand and scrawled down as much of the dream as he could. Something he never used to do, but there were a lot of things he never used to do before he started working here. Dream of dead agents was top of that list too. He had to find Myka, his gut was churning. This wasn't just a vibe, this was a vibe and the sinking feeling he had just booked passage on the Titanic all rolled into one.

#

The man who had come out of the underground bunker frowned at the sunlight he was so unused to seeing. His gait was shuffling and he managed to stumble his way into Leena's. Leena backed away apprehensively. "Your Aura is blinding."

The figure smiled. It was the ghost of its former self but it was there. "If I could get a shower and a hot meal, we can get to work. I assume if you broke me out there had to be some sort of real problem."

It was nearly an hour later when the figure descended the stairs looking much better than he had before. "Note to self, a hundred years in a drug induced coma, not good."

"A hundred?"

"I wasn't put down until the 1900s I was awake for the first century or so. But I guess then they got tired of having to corral me so they just drugged the hell out of me."

"Hundred years?" Artie asked a little dumbstruck.

"Yes. And I assume if you broke into the zero vault that there is a reason."

It was Pete who finally answered. "Tell us about the statues that move. The ones that speak with borrowed voices and weep without tears."

"How do you know about that?"

"Karen Trainer."

"Quickly, what is the year?"

"2012." Pete said.

"Then they had put off the attack. Something stopped them."

"The Assassins are in the Warehouse. Keep your eyes open." Pete read, "Mean anything?"

Karen was too afraid to say their name because they had taken her over, possessed her if you will, and if she said their name it drew a mental picture in her head which allowed them power over her. Ancient histories call them the Lonely assassins and if you have more than one you are in deep trouble."

"I had a dream last night." Pete said. "She said if you saw the city you would understand and you know the magnitude of the army against us."

"Where are we?"

"South Dakota." Artie said as he came in with cookies. "About ten miles from where the hospital was."

"Vault nine?"

"Still locked, but that one is active."

"One what? What are we fighting against?"

Jack smiled, his smile seemed to light the whole room, but then he sobered. "My name is Captain Jack Harkness. At this point in history I work for a group called Torchwood. We deal with aliens and their technology worldwide. One especially nasty alien is the Weeping Angel. No one knows where they came from. No one knows when they came to earth. But they've been here a long time. You see them standing in yards and Graveyards. You see them in churches. They are the angels with their faces covered." He got up, his greatcoat flying out behind him and began to pace. "In the eighteen hundreds we only knew of a couple, and we kept them dormant by damaging them. But now they are mobilizing."

"But they are only stone statues."

"When you see them." Jack said.

"What is seen has ceased to be but only as long as Vision lasts." Myka said.

Jack nodded. "They are quantum locked. It is a fancy way of saying that they only exist as long as they are unobserved by any living thing. The moment they are seen by any living thing, or should I say 'anything with breath' I believe is the original translation, they freeze into stone. But when you look away, when you blink or turn your head they move. And they move fast. If they touch you you vanish into the past. But there is something we didn't know earlier. If you look into their eyes long enough they will take over. And when your time runs out you become one of them."

"Why did they call you the madman? The Ultimate artifact?" Artie asked.

"Immortality in the 1800s has a tendency to do that." Jack smiled. "And to be clear, these are not artifacts. These are aliens.


	6. Town Of Angels

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

November 3 2000

Does he see it? Has he seen the city yet? Does he know the horrible secret of the man who was statue and is now flesh? Does he know what the man with the artifacts has done? I hear them, whispering in the darkest part of my mind. Those statues of stone with borrowed voices. The weeping statues that cannot weep. The ones who turn family against family. There is something artie missed. Something he did not understand. My family did not die, they are no more. They looked into the eyes of the demons and they were taken. The pictures came alive and devoured them whole to make more of their own. The image is the truth. That which holds likeness holds truth. Seven.

My thoughts run in circles, my countdown is nearly half-spent but they will not let me do anything. My days are dark, but at times the voices seem to compel me to give them light. Seem to compel me to open my eyes and let them see the world. The madman with the smile of ages, the statues fear him, for he has touched Eternity itself. And time itself runs away from him. It convulses and twists around him it lurches and dives hoping to shake him, but the vortex cannot destroy itself. The army is coming, call for the Doctor, he will help, or he will damn you with words of sorrow. The war will never end, there is no way to stop them, but we can slow them down. Look for the Caretakers.

#

Myka, I know you do not know me. I am Philip, the Caretaker of the Asylum. And I need you to listen carefully. (I know, bad turn of phrase when this is written but hear me out.) The statues you seek are in the form of Angels. And they hide their eyes. As long as they remain 'weeping' you are safe, but once they move, and you will know they do, then you must be very careful never to let them out of your sight. Not to blink, or turn your head away, not to turn and run as much as your heart tells you to. That is the worst thing to do.

I will tell you the secret of the vanishing patients. They have all become angels. If you look into their eyes they become you. Two hundred patients over fifty years were taken by the angels. Most simply vanished but at the time of this writing I know of seven statues. That is more than the original two that stood at the gate. They like the dark, the shadows, places where the human eye cannot see. I dare not give you pictures of them for whatever holds the image of an angel itself becomes an angel. That is how they hunt, images haunting your dreams crawling into your nightmares and taking over.

Do you see it? Do you see the army hidden in plain sight? The statues without dates, without inscriptions, the ones that weep, their faces covered. The war is coming and I pray to God that the Doctor finds you before it is too late. They must be seen, they must be viewed to be stopped. Angels have no eyes to see, they will assume that they are seen even if they are not. And if one of your own is counting, I am sorry, then we are too late, for that means they will become what the angels are. And the Angels will know what they do.

Don't Blink, Don't turn your back, Don't run away. Don't even blink.

#

Jack started his tour at the old hospital. And a worried frown crossed his face. The firebombs had left square white marks. Like the bases of statues. He counted a half-dozen. The two at the gate were gone. Long since sold and carted off. But what worried him most was walking through the town. Peaking out of gardens, he saw them, in shop windows. There were two in front of the post office, head in hands, and two more in the park not a hundred feet from children playing.

Jack cursed.

"You bloody idiots, you bleeding bloody idiots." He said pointing to the statues. Pete and Myka stood next to him looking perplexed. "You are hosting an army in your own backyards."

"What do you mean?"

"The statues, the bloody angel statues. They are your 'artifact' Your Lonely Assassins. They are the bleeding angels. How many more of them are in houses and yards across the country?"

"They are only stone.

"When you see them Myka. They are only stone when you see them. Onobserved they move. Pete, you can't tell me they don't make your hair stand on end and turn all your senses around?"

No, I've hated those since I saw them"

"Your senses know they are not what they are pretending to be. They are more than stone. Your hunches are telling you this is bad, This is like end of the world bad. A single angel could take out hundreds what could a legion of them do?"

"How do we stop them?

"We can't. I mean we can stop these ones, we can make them inert, we can delay. But who knows how long they have been breeding."

"How do stone statues breed?" Pete asked, certain he wasn't going to like the answer.

"By taking over humans." Jack ran back to the car. "Get us back to the warehouse. We need to find Artie."

#

Artie was not inclined to believe the wild story at first. Not until he got to the part about the statues taking over humans. Then he knew this man, madman or no, was telling the truth. He'd seen it. That was what happened to Karen Trainer's family. One minute they were there and the next they were angels arms outstretched to kill. It was only sheer luck that he'd managed get her out of there. Of course, when he found her he didn't understand the significance of the counting.

"So how do you bring them back?"

Jack shook his head. "As far as I know, you don't. I sent out a call for the Doctor, it should get to him by now. But I don't know where in his timestream it is. So either way we have to make an attack plan before we do anything else.

"How dangerous are these Angels?"

"Oh you know, they are only an unkillable army bent on killing all of humanity."

"What do they want?"

"Power. They don't give a fig or thistle about us puny humans except that we are a natural source of potential energy. They zap us out of our own time and then feed on the energy residue left behind by the change in history. But we found out before, with Karen you can't be attacked that way twice. At least not very soon. If she had lived twenty years in the past they might have been able to attack her again but they didn't know that. Or at least didn't figure that out. Angels are smart but only to a point. More cunning than anything but have no frame of reference."

So how do you fight them?

"Here is the bad news." Jack said, his killer smile taking the edge off the horrible news. "There really isn't anything we can do but survive. We can render them inert temporarily, but mostly it is just going to be a case of surviving till sunup and making them freeze each other. It is a fact of their biology that when seen by any living being they instantly turn to stone and remain as stone until they are no longer being watched. It doesn't take much, a blink, a sneeze, anything that takes your eyes off of them for even a fraction of a second Artie and it is game over." Jack smiled over at Pete who grinned in return, causing myka to elbow him hard in the ribs. "This is no time for flirting."

"Artie, there is something else. I know you want to bag and tag them, just like you do with everything else. But we CANNOT let them get into the warehouse. The Mirrored vault should hold that one now that it is active, it can only avoid looking at itself for so long."

"What classifies as a living being?" Artie asked.

"Why?"

Artie, Myka and Pete looked at each other and said in Unison "HG."

"She's a consciousness, just separate from her body." Artie Explained.

"Bring her along."


	7. Counting the troops

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

November 4, 2000

Do you still hear me, is there anyone there? The darkness is so lonely, I dare not open my eyes though. If I do they will get me, they will know what I know, they will understand the plan that I make, and I cannot chance that. But I am afraid. I know it is the Assassins, I starve them and they know it. They make me want the light more than ever. They make it nearly impossible to keep my eyes closed, they badger me until I think I will be six, I mean sick unless I see the light.

But even in the dark there is hope. The Caretakers survive. Find the way, find the words that will bring them to you. A legion for a legion. They will come. We cannot win, but we can at least protect the others. Hold them, hold them until then. There will be attacks they will try to pick you off before the main attack if they can, but you must hold them. They can steal the power in the wires, but they cannot steal the sun. They steal the heat from the air, they steal the warmth from your soul, they are evil.

Find the Caretakers, look at the words, understand them. The attacks will get worse and worse until the big attack. Find the reports hidden in the files, the ones that don't make sense. Find the times they have attacked, find the places they are and send the caretakers.

#

Claudia looked up from the computer puzzled. "You said they were waiting for the eclipse?" She asked the pretty man in the long coat. "Hello, I'm captain Jack harkness."

"Claudia donvan." She barely paid him any further mind. "But you said they need like total dark before they move enmasse right?"

"Yeah."

"Then they missed their shot. The luar ecliplse was last year, and the next solar eclispe isn't until 2017. The next luar eclipse is 2015."

Jack laughed. "They missed it, somewhere along the way their timeline went awry. That means we have time. Granted, they will still come after us."

So what?"

"Claudia we just went from defcon five to defcon three." Jack said with a grin. "We have time. As long as we have time we can fight."

"I've been doing some digging." Claudia said with that sheepish grin that said 'hacking'

"Where?"

"Everywhere. I figured I would start tracing the other counting patients see if we could figure out where they went. But this is just mind boggling. Claudia pulled down a map of the US. On it were marked 200 small angels. "As of Karen trainer's death, this was the location of every Angel from the hospital. "Now, this is just assuming there are no more, which we know there are." The timeline progressed and the numbers under the angels scrolled, and some of the angels moved farther apart. As they did new angels began to pop up. "This is where it begins to get freaky." The map pulled out again. This time showing the entire Continent as some of the statues moved to Canada and Mexico. "By the time of the lunar eclipse they will, assuming these two hundred were all they were, have a group in every major city in North and south America. By the time of the Solar Eclipse they will have reached europe, and assuming a 50/50 kill/turn ratio, they will have killed off most of the Human race by 2040."

The map now was dotted nearly world wide with the black Angel logos.

#

All of them were surprised to see someone waiting for them at the Bed and Breakfast. Leena went to go speak with artie. She handed him one of his own business cards. Written on the back was a date. And a time. "He handed it to me when he came in. He's dangerous."

The figure sat slumped in a chair, his coat was torn and beaten, and Jack could see what looked like blood and grime. One hand was wrapped in cloth that had been torn to ribbons by use. He could see that the cloth was bloody, it was being used as a bandage of some sort. Over all the man looked tired. Attached to the pack at his feet was a small folding shovel. The pack too looked worn and beaten.

Jack hadn't introduced himself or even done more than enter the room before the man came out of his chair and to perfect military attention. Wrapped hand held in a British, 'flat handed' salute. Jack smiled and returned the salute out of habit, watching as the bone tired figure slid bonelessly back into the chair. He'd have to readjust his assessment of the figure since it was appearant that the boy knew him.

"I didn't get your name soldier."

"John Smith sir, Caretaker of the town of Univille." He took a sip of his tea. "You probably noticed I'm not from around here." The vowels showed a distinct welsh manner about them.

"I also noticed you are not a Smith."

The figure smiled and laughed. "I am now. Caretakers don't use their names. We would rather be forgotten then remembered by the enemy."

Jack nodded. "You seem to know me."

"Yes sir, you taught the Caretakers what you would look like. You told us when you would be back, it's all in the writings. But you are a few years late, as are they."

The caretaker looked over at Artie. "You must be Artie. That makes these people Myka, Pete and Leena."

"Yes, how do you know that?"

"You were described very well. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, I almost didn't make our meeting Artie."

"Do I know you?"

John looked at the Captain and smiled. "We must be out of order. It happens sometimes. You gave Jack a card." He nodded to Jack. "And Jack gave the card to the First caretaker. The first Caretaker in turn gave it to the one who would stay here. This card has not been more than a hundred miles from this spot in over two hundred years."

"Why?" Artie looked confused.

"Because he needed to make sure we would meet. We can give you accurate numbers of how many Angels are in the immediate area and how many of them are inert."

"You've been vandalizing them." Jack said pointing to his wrapped arm.

The man nodded. "Sometimes its the easiest way to render them safe. Been breaking into old houses to render them safe. You have a very big problem. Very big."

"What do you mean?"

"In the last two hundred years, the number of Lonely assassins has gone from the Two original to nearly two thousand in this city alone. And in recent years that number has been rising at an alarming rate."

"What do you consider alarming?" Jack asked.

"Over the past couple hundred years, up until sometime around the forties they averaged one or two attacks a year, There were forty last year alone. There have been ten this year."

"The missing Persons."

The Caretaker smiled. "Yes. All those strange missing persons that literally just seemed to vanish, all their things left, sometimes food on the table. The Angels attacked. And usually it is because they are threatened. Someone unknowingly gets one and then something happens, it makes them uneasy and they want to get rid of it. The Angels want to be where people are. And they want to be where unsuspecting people are. Some of them are sheer accident. Some well-meaning person takes a picture of them, and Angel climbs out of the picture to attack them. Others, try to get rid of or hurt the statues, and the statues retaliate."

"Artie, you have seen them. They can climb right out of pictures and take over."

"Why do you look like you've been through hell."

"I have. There were four of us. I'm the last one left. One of the Angels followed us to our meeting place and managed to take three of us before I was able to subdue them."

"Them?"

Jack held up a hand. "How many of them were taken?"

"Three got zapped, and one came down with the counting sickness."

"What happened?"

"I took care of him." There was steel in the voice even as it cracked. "I couldn't let the damn thing take him."

"You killed him?" Myka sounded horrified.

The younger man, Myka realized was barely out of his teens. The reply was a hysterical tone nearly shouted as if he was trying to excuse himself. "The Angel took him. It crawled inside him and took over. He didn't want to become what it was."

"So you killed him?" Jack's voice held no rebuke. "What was his name?"

"Rafe, Rafe Simms, he was my brother."

Jack put a hand on the man's shoulder. "I'm sorry."

The man was silent a moment before jumping up and digging in his pack. "I nearly forgot," His hand shook as he pulled a pair of things out of his pack. The first was a leather wrist cuff with a buckle on it. The second looked like a pocketwatch.

"You also gave us your wrist strap. You said you couldn't have it on you or you would be too tempted."

"Anything else?"

"Just a message." The young man turned to Artie. "The rest of it is all books and annuals. But this mesage is for you. 'The one who started this all, he finds something he should not have been able to touch, but bronze has no breath, and he was able to speak to it. Somewhere deep in the place your brain goes when you are asleep he found it, weeping and alone. And it crawled into him. It showed him where to find things that he should not know, he promised to let them free. But, something happened. Something changed the plan. The bronze one died without dying. And now he plots his revenge. He found an artifact, or at least, that is what he believed it to be. In reality, it was not of this world. Something Torchwood wanted but could not find. And he took the memories from the only ones who might be able to stop him. I am sorry for both of you. But I have to do it. "Silent Angels among the Artifatcs."

Jack blinked. Artie just remained staring, unmoving. "He'll be ok. But he needs to know, he needs to understand who MacPherson is and why he is after him. You cannot let him out of this time Jack."

"What?"

"Check your strap. I can't stay. We will meet one more time."

#

"Silent Angels Among the Artifacts." Artie couldn't have told you the words, but the cadence was familiar and a moment later he was plunged into what looked and felt like his memories, but not ones that he knew. A beautiful man in a blue great coat, the rippling, tearing, burning of travel through the swirling light, and the name attached to that light, the Void. The vortex. Impossible cities floating over beautiful water. Two suns setting under an amber sky.

A face in the mirror, not his own but familiar. Much younger, taller. Handsome and well-built. A wrist-strap adorned his wrist and he walked with the swaggar that most Time Agents eventually developed.

An order to pick up a criminal who was making weapons on Earth. MacPhearson, he was making trouble using future bioweapons and his wrist strap to cause trouble. The order had been given. Pick him up, Take his memory of any thing to do with time and Exile him to the past to live out a normal life. He was too high powered to kill outright, his father was some senator somewhere.

"Arthur," It was the man in the blue Greatcoat, "You don't have to do this pick someone else."

"I can't Jack. It has to be me. I wish I could explain. But it has to be me."

"Arthur, they are going to strip you down to every molecule you have ever had, resequence you and omit anything to do with us. With this place."

"I know jack. I don't like it but I can't change it."

"You saw something didn't you?"

"You know even if I had, I couldn't tell you. But I need you to promise me."

"Promise you what?"

"A couple things. The first is that when you hearthe code phrase Silent Angels among the Artifacts, you will let me remember. "

Ok.

"And when it is no longer needed, you will make me forget."

"Arthur?"

"You know what I'm capable of. You know what I did before I started working here. I can't take the chance I would do it again."

Jack nodded and kissed the young man on the forehead, a benediction of sorts. "I promise Arthur, I promise."

Jack turned away as his best friend began the process of resequencing. It was painful, very painful, and the screams Arthur made tore him apart. But the men there had been ordered not to listen to Jack. Not to let him stop it from happening. But in the end they had to knock him out. History or no history he could not watch his friend torn apart and put back together as a different man.

Artie opened his eyes, blinked, attempted to take a step and passed out


	8. First attack

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

November 5, 2000

I have a feeling things will go faster now. The watch isn't working. I knew it would happen, and I keep telling myself its Five, Fine, I mean, but the dark is beginning to wear on me, and I hate knowing what I do. I should never have hacked into the Forbidden archive, there are too many things out there that artifact just can't explain.

I have decided, when I get to one, whether I have met the madman or not, I will run to the Statue. I guess I had better explain. I am living in two lives. I was under observation because I can sometimes see what will happen. Not always, and not with clarity. But sometimes I get a flash of something ahead I have been using the watch to synch things up. But the watch has stopped for me, the times are too close. The madman, he appears in a wash of blue light with at least one other, just as my time runs out. I know this much. I only hope that things work correctly.

#

Artie opened his eyes. A pair of blue ones looked down at him. "You ok?"

Artie nodded, shook his head, shrugged. He wasn't really sure. This man was very familiar, memories he hadn't known were missing had now fit themselves into place.

"Jack?"

"Yeah Arthur, I'm here. How do you feel?"

"Like Andegorian Pasta." The words were familiar, an old reply, but they pulled up nothing. Empty memories.

Jack laughed. It was still odd seeing this man with another face. But at least he finally understood. He finally knew why Arthur had come. He had to watch over a man so dangerous that even in the past with no memory of what he was, he tried to destroy the world.

Jack handed Artie a glass of orange juice. "Should help with the dehydration and the low blood sugar from the Retcon."

His reaction to that word was instantaneous. "Why the hell?" A look of betrayal crossed his face. A look Jack knew well. "If you went and Retconned me, why'd you break it? I mean the cure is almost worse. Was it my fault? Did they take my pension? Are you here to-" He swallowed hard.

Jack cursed, realizing that the ONLY memories he had were ones that directly related to this job. Everything else was gone. What the operatives referred to as a 'cradle reset' He had vague memories that could not be ferreted out. So somewhere inside he knew of the Agency, He understood what was expected of him. Of course he would think Jack was here to "End his contract." That was, after all how the Time Agency worked.

"It isn't like that." Jack held up a hand to stop him. "Last I checked you were still on assignment. As to the Retcon, You told me to. You made me, actually. It was entirely your choice to follow the rogue here. You knew what sort of stuff he had disappeared with. But we had no way of knowing just where or when it was."

"So you are here to?

"Catch, subdue or kill MacPherson." Jack said. "And stop the end of the world."

He was silent a long moment. His eyes closed. Jack knew Artie was checking what was left of his memories for any sign of truth. He knew Artie would never believe him, they'd run too many cons with and against each other. Artie sat up slowly, looking at Jack. The webly was still in its holster. The eyes that looked at him were ancient and held only fear and concern. "I guess they need to know."

Jack just nodded. There was no apology, there never would be. This man knew him as a con. A con they had picked up God-knows-where, had used, and when he no longer served a purpose, blitzed his memory of two years before dropping him in a bar with his wrist strap, a few hundred dollars severance pay, and one wicked hang over.

"Pete, Myka. There is something that I need to tell you. Something that I won't remember after this battle."

"The change of name and Exile is true, but before that, before I came here I lived another life. I was born in the fifty-second century. I worked at a place called the Time Agency, and I was sent back to keep an eye on MacPhearson. He was a Time agent, stranded in the past. We figured he couldn't do any harm here. That he didn't have access to all of his weapons so he wouldn't be a problem."

"What sort of problem? I don't understand." The voice was Myka's.

"He was a Malthusian, the only things that grow exponentially are populations and death rates. So he would sell arms and medicine to both sides. Starting the wars and then selling them medical supplies to patch them up, and drugs to make them faster. If it could be sold on the black market, he had a hand in it."

"So that is why you had him working here?"

"No, actually, until this moment I didn't recognize him. I just knew he was someone I had to keep an eye on. But somehow he had managed to get here before me and set himself up. He was ok at first I guess, but, something changed. Something sparked at least a partial memory cascade."

"What do you mean?"

"His memory was blitzed back to short pants, and he was sent here with a new back story provided by the Agency. The type of drug they used was never supposed to break, but he must have found a way. He must have found something that would allow him to remember."

"Arthur, I would love to reminisce but we have angels on the loose."

Any further comment was cut off by one word, one damning word, "Four."

#

Jack and Artie turned to the caretaker who sat in the chair, hands under him, eyes forced shut. "I'm sorry." He was shaking. "I'm sorry." He was crying. "I couldn't hold back any longer."

"Keep your eyes closed kid." Jack's voice was strained.

"You know the choices." The young caretaker wept and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. "You know Jack."

"No. That isn't going to happen."

"Jack."

"No." Jack's tone left little room for argument. "We will find a way."

"You have to destroy the Angel that attacked me. How are you going to find one angel among many?"

"Where were you?"

"They are coming. I feel them. They are coming. They will tear through the warehouse, they will feed and then the attack will begin."

"Caretaker!" Jack's voice was sharp. He shook the young man. "Fight it. Where were you?"

The boy hung his head and for a moment was silent before he spoke again. The fear in his voice was easy to hear. "The Librarian's house. Image is the truth Jack. They did a photo study of the Angels, Hanging in nearly every house."

"Leena. Get me a blindfold." Jack's voice was sharp, but not with anger as much as with urgency.

It seemed like seconds later when she came back with the the sleep mask. He slid it over the Caretaker's eyes. "That should help for now."

"Thank you sir, but-"

"I won't hear that. Not right now. Right now we need battle plans. The doctor's late, so we have to go in alone."

"What are they after?"

"Isn't it obvious? They are after the power source. They need energy, and you could give them enough to take over the world. But right now they can't come in. Something about this place protects it from them."

"What?"

"Something here, there is something here they are afraid of. But they are not the only thing in the warehouse, there are others, forgotten, in the dark, an army of forgotten soldiers refugees from nowhere, things that hide in the dark things that should not be here. Your friend, no, your enemy, the statue, he brought things here, things he doesn't understand. Artifacts he doesn't know about."

"What did he bring? What are they afraid of?"

"What he brought is not what they fear, what they fear was already, The doctor is late, he cannot come, because a war rages, and they know this, but that war, it slows them, there are things in the shadows."

He takes a ragged breath, "They fear the girl with the hammer."

#

It was claudia that met the first angel. She had gone into town to get a few things they needed for the computer. She was walking past the library when she stopped. She could have sworn that the angels faced south, these two were facing each other, east and west, eyes covered, they were silent and cold. But as she walked past she knew that one of them had moved. She had moved into their line of sight, blocking one from seeing the other for just a moment.

She reached for her Farnsworth. "Artie. Angels. Library." She closed it and dove away as the Angel moved towards her. She froze it by looking at it, reaching into her bag, reaching for anything that would help. Her hand closed around the artifact she had just gotten. John henry's single jack. She pulled it out of the bag, swinging it at the angel behind her. She heard it hit and turned to look over her shoulder, even as she reversed direction and swung at the other. The angel began to crack from the blow, falling to ragged chunks at her feet, which she stepped over. She connected with the second one, shattering it too. Then she reached for the farnsworth. "Artie, I neurtralized the two that were after me."

"How?"

"John Henry's single Jack."

Jack pushed in close enough to be seen. "It isn't permanant, they can repair but it will take a lot of energy. Keep it handy."

"Aye aye captain." She saluted.

"Look, get what you need and come home." Artie said. "Under no circumstances are you to go after these things unless you have to."

"I know. I wouldn't be here but we need a new part for the field generator or the gooery is going to jam up again."

"Hurry and come back.


	9. Second Salvo

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

November 6, 2000

Four. The watch doesn't work anymore. I was using it to stop time while I wrote so that I wouldn't eat up minutes, but now it is all crashing down. I can feel it, they are coming, they worry about the girl with the hammer, they worry about the man from everywhere, the madman, they worry what he would do to them if they touch him. They call him the void-man, and it scares them.

He breathes when he should not, and I know he is coming soon. A wash of blue, and then he will be here. And that is when I know they are coming. But the angels, they are not the only thing the man without breath brought into the library. There are other things, worse things. But there is something you need to find. It is buried among the Artifacts.

Three.

Everything is different now. I can hear the door opening, Artie is coming I have to go. I will leave this on my bed, Be careful of what is in the dark, and the one who named the destroyer of worlds. The Angels are a misdirection. The man without breath doesn't understand what he did.

#

Pete kept his eye on the Caretaker but he walked over to Jack. "So what do we do? How do we stop them?"

Jack's eyes were unfocused as he thought about that. But Pete could practically see the lightbulb. "My teleport works."

"So?"

"So, we need things that teleport, and things that break, We let them chase us, as if they were going to trap us, then we teleport out leaving them to stare at each other.

So what about the caretaker?"

"I'm bringing him with me."

"And then?"

Jack didn't say anything, he didn't have to. The tightly pursed lips said as much as the unconscious touch to the holster at his hip.

"It's really that bad?" Pete asked quietly.

Jack nodded."He would kill us as soon as we turned away. Angels don't know mercy. And the Other Angels will come looking."

Pete nodded, "We can't keep him here then."

Jack shook his head, feeling every one of his twenty plus centuries. "You listen to your instinct Pete, it is going to tell you to do something insane. It is going to tell you to do something you won't understand. I don't have time to explain. But I need you to follow your vibes, no matter how much you think someone will hate you for it."

"Three."

#

No one had seen the Caretaker move. The dark was too much for him and he ripped off the blindfold. But a moment later, as soon as the word 'three' had left his lips he closed his eyes again.

"I'm sorry Jack." He was on the floor sobbing.

Jack had launched himself at the young man dragging him up off the floor, holding him to his shoulder. "I'm sorry,"Jack pulled the young man close and put the blindfold back on. Jack sighed before pulling a pair of handcuffs and securing the young man's hands. "Shhh." Jack held him to his shoulder, hand tangled in the back of his hair. "I forgive you."

The boy shivered. "You know, Jack. " He swallowed hard. "You know what has to be done."

"I know. Just sit there a few minutes." He slid the boy back into the chair, arms secured firmly behind his back.

"I can't do this here." Jack's voice was low and full of sorrow, his words directed at Artie. "Besides breaking the protection, there is a chance he will revert when..."

Artie nodded. "What are you going to do?"

"What I have to Artie." Artie shivered. Retcon or no, he knew this man was capable of it. And somewhere in the back of his mind long dormant memories stirred, memories of what this man was capable of, memories of a secret Jack didn't know, couldn't know. Memories of why he had stolen two years of his best friend's life. Memories of what had happened to force that betrayal. "We will meet again Artie, but there is something you should know." Jack leaned forward and whispered something in Artie's ear. Artie choked on air. "You can't be serious."

"Deadly."

"But."

"You will understand. Just do what I say Artie."

"But Jack."

The shake of his head was violent, and the man spat a word none of them understood, but it bore the unmistakeable tone of command. Artie looked up at the Time Agent. The blue eyes were ancient, but somehow even with the whispered request- no, command, even with the whispered command, there was trust. He knew that Artie would do as he was ordered. That he had to. That it was right.

Artie nodded.

"You will know when."

"What about?-" Artie asked.

"Don't worry Artie, you'll get your new life back." Jack's eyes were flint when he turned back to the Caretaker. The young man wouldn't meet his eyes at first, but when he did, he saw sorrow, fear, hatred, but no, more of a self-loathing hatred.

Everyone in the room saw the change in Jack, he wasn't the happy-go-lucky man he had been a moment before. There was a quiet steel in his voice and a way about him that shouted death from every fiber of his being. He grabbed the Caretaker. Hand behind him to keep him from bolting. "Travel without a pod is rubbish, just a warning."

He held the man's bound hands in his own, placing them over his wrist strap speaking softly. "Here we go."

Jack vanished in a wash of blue light.

#

Pete and Myka gasped, mouthes open as the blue light engulfed both the captain and his prisoner. Myka's gut was twisted, she knew the boy was being taken out to his own execution, but it seemed like even he thought that was the only way. "I can't do this."

"You have to Myka. We are the only thing between these angels and the rest of the world." Artie handed her a piece of paper. He handed another one to Pete. "Gather these Artefacts, keep them close. If anyone from the warehouse asks, this is a code nine situation."

"Artie?"

The loveable, grumpy man revealed a layer of steel none of them had seen before. Like Jack, something about him made them take a step back, mentally if not physically. This man was dangerous.

"Where is he going?"

"You don't want to know. Jack will do whatever he has to to save us all. Don't doubt that. There are only two things to believe in when the world is about to end, the first is the Doctor, and the Second, a very close second, is Jack. The doctor is the only man I know who can by logic, and forgiveness, and a little well-placed disgust turn a heartless bastard into a full blown hero."

"Jack?" Pete asked.

Artie nodded. "There is a lot about his life with us Jack doesn't know, Can't know, things that would destroy him. Things we had to forcibly take from his mind if he had any chance of moving on. But I can tell you, I probably know Jack better than anyone alive. And deep down, he's just a poor boy from the back woods who never got a break."

"Do you trust him?"

"With my life? Always. In general, no. Jack can be damn ruthless when he has to be


	10. Third Strike

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

Two, I can feel it, time is almost up. The watch no longer works, and things are coming to an end. They will be here soon, the madman, the Caretaker. Everything has been taken away from me. The void-man, the Madman, scares them. They do not know if they can touch him, and they are afraid to try. He has touched the void, he has lived too many lifetimes, the potential energy is wrong. He is wrong. But the bronze man, the man with no breath, he brought something far worse into the warehouse, something that waits in the darkness. Something that does nothing but kill.

#

Myka walked around the Band B. Everyone was scared, she hadn't seen or felt this much fear since HG tried to end the world. But somehow these angels, these living statues were far more frightening than anything else. She had been keeping an eye on the statue she could see out the window. A statue she knew had to be one of those angels, it turned her insides all wrong, and she knew there were no statues here. Beside her, HG stood.

So you are telling me that these things move when you don't see them?

Myka nodded. "Watch."

Myka blinked. The statue had moved about twenty yards closer to the place. "We don't know if you count or not. But we figured it was worth a try."

Pete still stood near the table, pouring over the books the caretaker had brought. He was looking for any way to defeat them.

"How's she-it doing?" Pete asked.

"A little closer now."

"There's another one." It was HG that told them about the one advancing from the other direction. She looked at it. It stopped. HG it seemed, counted as a person.

"Anything pete?"

He flipped a page. "What's the date?"

"April 22 why?"

"Something is supposed to happen today. Something they say will change everything." Pete flipped back a couple pages. "But it doesn't say what. All it says is that everything has to be ready today, History and future will collide, the clocks will stop and they must be trapped on the wrong side"

#

Tick tock goes the clock

The Angels on attack,

Tick tock goes the clock

And everything went black

#

Claudia ducked into a building. She hated this. Normally she was all up for any of this strange stuff. But these statues, these living statues were becoming a real pain. She had already left two people staring at Angels on her way back to the Warehouse. Two more Angles were piles of rubble, and she had run across the scary, cute guy with the guy he called the caretaker, she ran past and then turned back. What she saw looked more like a man going to an execution than a fight. The strange man in the grey coat yelled at her to go, and two steps away she heard the shot. And the sound like stone being moved.

She hesitated, going back. The sight that met her eyes surprised her. Jack lay on his back, eyes open staring up at the statue, but there was a neat hole in his head. He gasped and she knew that the statue would attack the moment he blinked, so she swung the single-jack. It took a chunk out of the wing, causing the Angel to turn toward her. She stared it down.

A moment later, a figure crashed into her, breaking her eye contact with the angel. She rolled to a stop to find the Coated man on top of her, normally not a position she would complain about, but she was worried because she could not see the Angel. It remained frozen where it was. It had caught its own reflection in a mirrored window.

She rubbed her eyes, they were scratchy like sand.

She saw the cute guy in the grey coat tense as she heard herself say

"Ten you"

#

Jack had led the caretaker out near the library. He really wasn't looking forward to this. He hated choices like this. But he made one mistake, he had given the boy the dignity of being unbound and unblindfolded, which was probably two mistakes in retrospect. He saw the caretaker reach for him. He knew it was too early, it was way too early, things were not in place yet. Claudia and Myka were not ready. So he did the only thing he could to buy some time. He shot himself. He knew that they could not zap him if he was dead. And he recovered quickly.

He gasped, and tried to remember not to blink. Beside him he heard the crack of stone on metal and turned his head. Claudia swung at the angel chipping a wing. But a moment later, he saw her freeze as she realized she was in line of sight. Behind her was a mirrored window and so he dove, knocking her down and barely missing impacting the hammer on the way down.

He rolled to a stop, looking down at claudia with a smile. But her eyes were unfocussed and he heard her say "Ten you."

He cursed roundly, she had been looking into its eyes. He pried the hammer out of her hand and swung it at the Angel as hard as he could. Claudia Flinched as he drew back and hit it again. Cracks had started to show by the second hit, and the third hit spun the pieces out in a shower of stone. He pushed the hammer back into her hand and pulled her to her feet before she could protest. "We have to get back to the warehouse with those parts.


	11. 5:02

Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim to own them. Just playing with them and will return them unharmed.

Warehouse 13 is property of SYFY, Again, I do not claim to own, just playing, no money is made, no harm is intended.

Torchwood: FX and BBC? Again, Don't own, just playing. Mostly just stealing Jack.

Continuity:

Doctor who, This occurs between dropping Amy and Rory off And TWORS. This is the "Two hundered year gap" or at least part of it.

Warehouse 13: This was written before I had seen the current season, and I used everyone's favorite bad guy.

Torchwood: Umm, not really putting this anywhere in TW, perhaps even before season one. I am figuring this is during the time he was working for London, which is why he does not want to show up. He realizes that he would be in two places at once. Don't shoot me if at first he is not acting like himself. He's been retconned by one of the agents everyone loves to hate.

The Warehouse gets a message in a bottle. Who are the three players? What happened to Agent Trainer? And what is this threat that has her so afraid she will not speak of them?

She stood in the room, she knew he was coming, he would always come. For just a matter of a couple of minutes both of them would exist at the same time. That would be her only chance. She pulled the gun. It was her old gun. And with it something else. It was a small tuning fork. It had taken her quite a while to find it. But she knew, with everything stopped, the resonance would destroy most of them in the area. It might not kill them all, but it should slow them down.

The clock ticked on, and as the hand passed, something happened. Or rather, nothing happened. Time began to unspool, and around her, in the carefully built room where she stood, the angels began to appear, and around them, behind them began to appear a building. It had taken quite a bit of doing to tangle the threads of time at a particular spot, but she knew that there was a fixed point, and knotted the threads of time and fate around that fixed point. Hopefully, if the artifacts she had used did what they were supposed to, this should send them back to the stone age.

There was a wash of blue light and the man in the greatcoat smiled up at her and raised the gun. She smiled. "One."

#

Claudia dashed inside with the parts, and faster than she had ever thought possible put the machine back together while the archive ran a search on the artifacts that Trainer had tagged with the word "Angel"

It was an odd collection of artifacts, but staring at the list she suddenly realized what Traier was doing. And, at the heart of the reaction was rheticus' compass. She watched as the appointed time clicked down, and just as the clock clicked over, she hit the button to activate it. For a moment she didn't notice what was going on. She didn't understand what the effect of the collection of artifacts and the dissolution of time would have on each other. Angels began to appear around her. More and more and more. There had to be hundreds of them. There was a wash of light around her, and the image around her went fuzzy, she could see the room around her. At one side were Trainer and Jack, guns trained on eachother. A few feet away, with their backs to her were myka and pete, guns drawn on someone she didn't know. And across the room was Artie. Time seemed to stop and it all happened at once. A hundred years of planning culminated in five seconds of gunplay.

Three guns went off almost at the same moment, they heard trainer scream, and then she was silent as the Angel took over. Claudia found herself unable to move.

#

Jack stood, counting down. He saw the world begin to come unhinged. Things began to change, and the Angels came. The pulsing sphere of energy drew them in, and they descended on the small group. He spoke softly to Agent Trainer. "I'm sorry."

"I know."

He squeezed the trigger of his webly at the same moment she pulled the trigger. The Angel, fearing she was about to die, took over, turning her to stone, the bullet slammed into his stomach, knocking him to the ground, "Now Artie!"

#

He clicked the button on the stopwatch, and it began to tick down the seconds, as it reached zero, a wave of white light washed over everything and ran towards the Angels. He tossed the stopwatch at the nearest angel and dove for the floor. "DOWN!" The light rushed past again, and again. A fourth time the light flashed by, and then time started running normally. The Angels disappearing from where they had been. As the light faded, they were nothing but an after image and then they were gone and so was Agent Trainer.

Pete looked down at Jack.

"Kill me."

Pete hesitated.

"It's ok Pete, He'll come back. Be gentle, it still hurts him."

The area around them was barren,

Pete aimed and fired twice. Artie reached down and took the teleport off of Jack's wrist and grabbed his agents. "Come on. We have to leave him."

"I don't understand."

The sun began to rise, and the outline of windows could be seen. "He has to stay here, and we have to go back."

Artie stopped and tucked a card into Jack's pocket before taking Myka, pete and Claudia by the hand. "Teleport without a capsule is rubbish."

The ground lurched sidways to meet them and the next thing pete knew he was on his knees outside the BandB.

#

"What happened?"

The figure in the greatcoat cast a shadow over Pete. "You shot me." Jack smiled. "Thanks."

"Gutshot, no fun." Pete grunted. He couldn't have told you how he knew it was the right thing to do, but it was.

"We used a ring of artifacts to create a stable point in time and draw a lot of the Angels to it. The Ripple in time from the reset did the rest. We basically froze them in a moment of time that no longer exists, trapping them on the wrong side of a timelock."

Claudia smiled and said to pete "We created a temporal black hole to eat all the Potential energy. With no energy, they went for the biggest source they could find, the explosion we created. But the resulting explosion got written out by paradox protection."

Claudia, Jack and artie looked at each other, shrugged, and said in unison 'timey wimey."

"What now?"

"Now, I go back to being artie."

"And I go back to Wales."

"How?"

"Teleport."

"I meant, how does he go back to being Artie." Pete asked. "Why?"

"You really shouldn't know too much about the future. Besides, MacPhereson is still out there."

"You never did tell me why you took this case."

"Maybe next time."

"Are you sure about this Arthur?"

Artie nodded. "You know it has to be done Jack. Why should I remember everything I can never have?"

Jack handed him a white pill and a bottle of water. "I'm sorry Arthur." Artie took the pill and within ten minutes was sleeping peacefully. Jack picked him up as if he didn't weigh anything and carried him back to the B and B. "The warehouse won't let me in, it knows I don't belong. But I can bring him to Lena's"

"What is that?" Claudia asked watching Jack play with another white pill.

"Retcon. It is a short-term amnesia pill. It will bring back the Artie you know. I'm pretty sure I'll be back. I mean this bastard brought a lot of stuff through." He shrugged. "I wish I could stop MacPherson for him but there are certain things that are part of history. And these things are what shape the future of the warehouse. Without them, Earth isn't ready.

"There is more?"

"As a good friend of mine says 'spoilers." Jack replied. "Keep digging into the Trainer file. She knew more than she should have."

"Why did Artie take this job?" Pete asked.

"Because he couldn't kill his best friend." Jack said.

"Kill his best friend?"

"He and MacPherson grew up together on Alvis joined the Time Patrol together, and when his friend went Mental, he chased him halfway across the Galaxy. But when it came down to it, he couldn't kill him. This was his other option." Jack shrugged. "I don't know which is worse, remembering him as he was, or making him forget."

"Trainer said there are worse things than angels."

"She's right."

"What's in the dark?" Pete asked.

"What's always in the dark." Jack smiled. "I have to go. I'm supposed to be in Wales. And I know the doctor is going to show up. I'm not supposed to be here when he does."

He stopped a moment and kissed Claudia. "I'd kiss Pete, but he has a little problem with that." Jack winked. "That's for saving my life."

But-

"You will."

Jack vanished in a wash of blue light. When the doctor arrived he found Artie sleeping peacefully, and no sign of the Angels. "Everybody lives."

#

****** Look for the two other stories, tentatively titled, "Air and shadow," and "To win the war." And they are right, there are worse things than Angels.


End file.
